1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to rotary internal combustion engines, and in particular four cycle, rotary internal combustion engines.
2. Description of the Prior Art.
The internal combustion engine (ICE) is the conventional power source for motor vehicles and many other forms of rotary power in the world today. Traditionally, pistons reciprocating in corresponding cylinders are used to rotate an output shaft which through transmission coupling is used to rotate a drive shaft in the vehicle. In the conventional four cycle internal combustion engine, a piston is moved within the cylinder to create an expanding chamber into which air and fuel are inserted or drawn. The piston in its second stroke is moved within the cylinder to compress the chamber as the air and fuel drawn in the first stroke are prevented by a valve mechanism from escaping from the chamber. In the third or power stroke, the piston is driven by the combustion of the air and fuel within the now compressed chamber, thus expanding the chamber. The fourth stroke is known as the exhaust stroke, wherein the piston compresses the chamber and by valve mechanisms the combusted air and fuel is allowed to escape. The four strokes are repeated for the continued driving of the piston. The piston can be connected by linkage to a rotating shaft from which rotary shaft power may be obtained.
It has in several instances in the past been proposed to arranged the cyclinders and pistons so that they essentially rotate about an axis of rotation along which the output shaft lies. Because of industrial pressures for efficiency and power production, many have been led to design rotary ICE power plants of varying shapes and designs for particular applications. In most such rotary ICEs, a true circular interior is not designed in order that power may be achieved from a not precisely circular rotation. Others have designed a stationary shaft about which a rotary housing or block revolves. At least one other has designed an off center rotation of cylinders where the pistons are frictionally engaged with the circular housing, to create a movement of the pistons through the cylinders in the conventional four cycle fashion.
All of these rotary ICE designs so far as is known have met with varying degrees of success according to the objects and problems they were designed to solve. Nonetheless, it is still desired to construct an efficient rotary internal combustion engine having the simplest manufactured structural elements with a minimum of friction between the moving parts during the rotation.